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‘I just had that lucky feeling’: Meet the man who won the $768 million Powerball jackpot

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It took him nearly a month to pull himself together. But newly minted multi-millionaire Manuel Franco of West Allis, Wisconsin, has come out of hiding to say hello to the rest of us poor suckers who weren’t as lucky at Powerball as he was.

The winning numbers for the $768 million jackpot, the nation’s third largest, were drawn March 27. Franco said Tuesday that he’d felt as it he were “going insane” as he checked and double-checked his winning numbers.

“I walked into the Speedway and I purchased $10 worth of individual Powerball tickets,” Franco said Tuesday, according to CNN. “I honestly felt so lucky that I did look up at the camera and I wanted to wink at it cause I just had that lucky feeling.”

Here’s what we know about Franco and his winning hand, thanks to Associated Press, various news outlets and the Wisconsin Lottery:

1. He’s 24 years old.
2. He comes from West Allis, which is just west of Milwaukee. The Wisconsin town of 60,000 was once known as Honey Creek.
3. After the drawing, Franco checked through the $10 worth of quick-pick tickets he had bought and thought he had gone over all of them and had not won.
4. But then he checked again — and found that the winning ticket had been stuck to a losing ticket.
5. As he started to match the first two numbers to two of the winning Powerball numbers, he told reporters this week, he felt like he “was going insane. I looked back at the three other numbers, they all matched. My heart started racing, my blood started pumping, I felt warm. I started screaming.”
6. The ticket, which Franco purchased at 2:14 p.m. March 27, contained these winning numbers: 16, 20, 37, 44, 62 and Powerball 12.
7. When he realized he had won, Franco said he “screamed for about 5 or 10 minutes.”
8. He is playing his cards close to the vest, declining to say much about himself at a news conference sponsored by Wisconsin Lottery officials.
9. He would not say what he did for a living or what kind of car he drives.
10. He said he quit his job two days after he’d won, telling himself that he just couldn’t continue at his workplace.
11. He didn’t tell his co-workers he had won.
12. He said he would take the lump sum payment and that he hoped to give some of it to charity.
13. He said he was prepared for people who might come out of the woodwork looking for a handout, adding “I’m ready and I know how to say no.”
14. The gas station where he bought the ticket will receive $100,000.
15. Franco’s prize is the third-largest behind the record-setting $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot that was shared by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee in January 2016, and a $1.5 billion Mega Millions jackpot that was won last year in South Carolina.
16. Franco’s win comes almost exactly two years after Wisconsin hit its last Powerball jackpot.
17. Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and state Rep. Gary Tauchen, both Republicans, introduced a bill immediately following the news conference that would essentially allow lottery winners to remain anonymous.
18. The news conference Franco gave was not obligatory.
19. Franco also told reporters that “I can’t believe that an ordinary guy like me could ever win the Powerball” and he added that he plans to “live my life normal as much as possible.”
20. Saying that it was scary to have such a valuable ticket in his possession, he kept it in a safe in his house.
21. Franco informed lottery officials April 22 that he had the winning ticket.
22. Rules require the winner to come and claim the award in person.
23. For some reason, a dairy cow mascot was also present at the news conference.